Archiv der Kategorie: Management

Here you find topics like planning, organization and leadership.

What is wanted

The modern workplace is moving. Globalization, information society and digitalization are transforming the working environment powerfully as at the advent of the steam engine. Manual labor shifts globally to where it is the cheapest. The physical values are replaced by informational. Digitalization virtualizes business processes. The remaining jobs provide expensive skilled or precarious less-educated activities. In both cases, the money is no longer sufficient in order to hold the people at work. The management thinks that the workforce desires good remuneration, a safe workplace, promotion and growth, good working conditions, interesting work, compassionate help with personal problems, loyalty to the employees, visible recognition, tactful discipline and active participation. Are these things really what is wanted?

In the following you find some criteria that are relevant for each of us. It is based on these ideas.

  1. Visible appreciation
    The ability to perform is in every employee. Additional amplifiers are praise, acknowledgment and respect. The biggest impact will be achieved, if the appreciation is visible to all. There are always appropriate occasions – at meetings, at the end of a project, at celebrations.
  2. Promotion and growth
    Especially the young workforce is motivated by career perspectives, which have a relatively long effect. Staggered programs that take several years increase on the one hand the operational ability and maintain on the other hand the tension. This includes certificates, education with popular coaches, training courses that interest the employees, and ultimately continuous growth through promotion.
  3. Active participation
    If the decisions are made over the heads of the employees, this dims their performance. Through employee participation, everyone is shaping the future. This reaches e.g. from capital to profit sharing to the joint designing of workflows and working conditions, like continuous improvement processes, quality circles or the learning organization. Important building blocks are the elements of self-organization – the joint development of the strategy, the structures and the processes, as well as participation in decisions that affect one.
  4. Good working conditions
    The working conditions are determined by various factors. The subjective ones are influenced by physical, intellectual, and mental states, which lead to a personal attitude – e.g. positive view, exhaustion, dislike. The factual aspects result from the available technology, the attractiveness of the workplace as well as the official regulations regarding the breaks, flextime or vacation.
  5. Good remuneration
    Even if payment does not have a long-term effect, it represents an important basis for employee satisfaction. In principle, the split in fixed and variable remuneration provides an additional motivator in the form of salary, holiday / Christmas money, and bonuses. It is favorable, if the distribution depends to a large extent on the individual performance. „Socialist“ levies on the basis of total success, without consideration of the personal contribution, rev the individual not so much up.
  6. Compassionate support with personal problems
    The most important relationships in everyday life are found in the work environment. This leads to the fact that personal problems are becoming visible over time. If the company offers a trustworthy environment that allows the employees to get advice in case of personal problems, to receive support from the supervisor or even from the HR department, then the workforce is intrinsically committed to the company.
  7. Interesting work
    Interesting tasks are especially encouraging for the particularly powerful employees. For this purpose, the challenges should fit with the interests of the individual, have a certain degree of difficulty or promise additional status. In conjunction with visible recognition, the employees are motivated for a long period of time.
  8. Loyalty to employees
    Active employee retention measures ensure loyalty. For this, you only need fair basic conditions, an open communication culture, backing and, for example, a visible appreciation. Poor personnel management is a central reason for the lack of loyalty. If the company does not realize this loyalty loss, they are surprised by the termination of the employee.
  9. Safe workplace
    Jobs will be safe, if you remain physically and mentally without harm and the place, where you work, is not dangerous. The potential threats of the workplace are overshadowed by the danger of not having one. The flexibilisation of the working world has become possible due to powerful IT programs. The simplified selection and administration of personnel has opened the door for flexible working hours and diverse types of employment. The results are precarious jobs, part-time work and increasing fluctuation.
  10. Perceived self-efficacy
    The freedom that is available for improving the work creates the self-efficacy that motivates to collaborate. As soon as you make intrinsically changes and prioritize the necessary tasks, you take ownership of the improvement. The necessary self-discipline and the respect for each other determine the working environment decisively.

Bottom line: What is wanted in the working day is once again moving. Today’s attitudes challenge tightly organized companies. The workforce wants visible recognition, active participation, compassionate help with personal problems, a safe workplace, good compensation, interesting work, promotion and growth, loyalty to the employees, good working conditions and tactful discipline. The different understanding of what the workforce really wants is reflected in the different prioritization of the management (see in the first section) and the employees (see in this paragraph), e.g. the importance of an interesting work, active participation, or the desire for compassionate support with personal problems. Once the executives take into account what is wanted, the company’s performance will increase – see more here !!

Every task an adventure

After years of organizational development, lifelong learning has come to business reality with the Generation Y. Born between 1980 and 2000, they rely on basic things, like their private and business groups, the balance between work and life, opportunities, where they can prove themselves and having fun. At the same time they are always online. Unfortunately, not all tasks are on the edge of innovation or deliver fast success stories in the shortest possible time. This is why companies ask themselves what inspires employees. Maybe it helps to make tasks an adventure?

However, what makes an adventure out of regular tasks, as they occur a thousand times? An important obstacle is the fact that adventures are created in the mind of each person. From the outside, you can only make proposals, but the required attitude everybody develops for oneself. Which explanations foster the desired attitude?

  • New tasks are exciting
    Of course. Unknown fields must be discovered. There is no standard solution that can be or even has to be copied. All participants are on the same level playing field. Here you can show what you are able to do. The fact that the tasks are again and again similar disturbs some people. In order to let the halo of the new outshines everything, it helps to draw the attention to the things that are different, that are applied for the first time. Even the extraordinary length can create this charm of unconventional. Projects are per se unique activities and have never happened before. Great tasks are, of course, always an adventure.
  • Routine tasks can be continually improved
    The horror for the adventurer are habitual activities that are repeated. There is nothing new in it that provokes excitement. And yet the practice introduced has its charms. In addition to the continuous improvement, which aims to generate progress from every cycle and every simple result, there is a danger in the exercise of the impractical work which must be avoided. Regular practice makes the processes so internal that they are handled unconsciously. Just as piano players play a piece of music so often from the sheet, until the fingers take control and the musicians can concentrate on the subtle nuances, the same way the routine facilitates to take care of the subtleties of the business. This internalization of the processes and the possible perfection makes routine tasks an adventure.
  • Simple tasks can be improved
    Even the simplest activities, which seem to require little talent at first sight, which usually take the form of routine tasks, but which obviously do not require any genius, offer unexpected senses of achievement to the attentive people. The accomplishment of simple tasks seems to be beneath the dignity of well-educated people. It is just that the small things that pull the great ones off. It is crucial to focus all senses on the ongoing activity. If you forget the world around you and the time flies unnoticed, you develop the feeling of happiness, which Mihály Csikeszentmihályi calls flow. Looking at the slightest differences and improvement opportunities that are in the execution of a simple activity, make the execution a sensual adventure.
  • Unintended tasks expand the capabilities
    The biggest obstacle to an adventurous task are the resistances that are built up before the actual activity even starts. This non-willingness often has simple reasons. The most difficult thing is, when the concerned people do not know the task – What has to be done? What do you have to consider? How long can it last? And why at all? At the same time, the advertisers usually know the answer to these questions and could convey the right answers in a challenging language. Sometimes the workforce can not cope with the task – How does it work? How should I create this with my language skills? How can I cope with this without training? Just as farmers prepare their field for sowing, a manager should prepare his employees for a task. As unbelievable as it sounds, but sometimes employees are even not allowed performing the tasks. There are regulations, which prohibit the execution of the activity or because a superior has something else in mind for them. In these cases, you should help the employees by obtaining approval beforehand. If none of the three cases are valid and they still do not want, the resistance has deeper reasons which may have nothing to do with the task. Maybe they just need a new job. Wanted tasks are always an adventure.

Bottom line: Most orders are not a mission to Mars. This, however, does not bother the fact of being an adventure. In every day business, there are always new tasks, which are per se adventurous. In addition, routine tasks or simple activities also offer venture. In the end, it is important that the employees develop the will to carry out the task and commit themselves to the duty. Even the mission to Mars is always rehearsed – actually pure routine. Since adventures happen in mind, means that they are a question of personal attitudes and understanding, the leaders should take care of breathing adventure spirit into every task, according to the motto: Every task an adventure.